SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
4/29/2012 6:16:32 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Seeing some of God’s Attributes
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
79:5-13
Message
of the verses: We will continue to
look at Psalm 79 in today’s SD. Warren
Wiersbe writes the following near the end of his introductory commentary: “We see Asaph playing four different roles as
he contemplates the defeat of Judah by the Babylonians.” We looked at the first role in the last SD.
The
Sufferer: Feeling God’s Anger (vv.
5-8): “5 How long, O LORD? Will You
be angry forever? Will Your jealousy burn like fire? 6 Pour out Your wrath upon the nations which
do not know You, And upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Your name. 7 For
they have devoured Jacob And laid waste his habitation. 8 Do not remember the iniquities of
our forefathers against us; Let Your compassion come quickly to meet us,
For we are brought very low.”
In verse five we see two
questions from Asaph which he asks of God.
How long will you be angry is the first question, but we really don’t
get an answer from God at this time in the Psalm, but we know from Jeremiah
25:11 that God had promised to bring the children of Israel back into their
land. Next we see that Asaph wants to
know about the jealousy of God. Dr.
Wiersbe points out that “God is not jealous of anyone or anything, for He is
wholly self-sufficient and needs nothing, but His is jealous over His land and His people. He is jealous for His name, His land , and
the His inheritance (Zech. 1:14).
Asaph wants the Lord to take care of
the nations that have attacked Israel, because they don’t know the Lord and
have destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
Then Asaph asks the Lord not to remember the sins of his forefathers
against Israel and asks for compassion.
Asaph knew that the punishment that the Lord had given to Israel was
just, for God is a just God, but because of the sins of the forefathers the
wrath of God had built up and because of God’s holiness, He had to move on
them. Let us look at Genesis 15:16 “"Then
in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite
is not yet complete.’” In this passage
God is speaking to Abraham, telling him that in four hundred years his
offspring will return to the Promised Land and conquer it then because the
iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.
The way that I look at this passage is that I picture a bottle in heaven
that God’s puts His wrath into and when it is full He has to act. I don’t just see this happening to those
nations who existed in the OT, but to nations in today’s world, and when that
bottle is full God will act for He is not only just and loving but holy. Dr. Wiersbe writes “We are guilty before God
for only our own sins (Deu. 24:16; Jer. 31:29-30; Ezek. 18), but we may suffer
because of the sins of our ancestors (Ex. 20:5; 34:7; 2Kings 17:7ff; 23:26-27;
24:3-4; Lam 5:7; Dan. 9:4-14).”
The
Intercessor: Pleading for God’s Help
(vv. 9-11): “9 Help us, O God of our
salvation, for the glory
of Your name; And deliver us and forgive our sins for Your name’s sake. 10
Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let there be known
among the nations in our sight, Vengeance for the blood of Your servants which
has been shed. 11 Let the groaning of the prisoner come before You; According
to the greatness of Your power preserve those who are doomed to die.”
We see that Asaph was concerned
about the glory of God and His name, and this shows that he was not selfish,
just trying to look out for himself, but cared about God’s glory and His
reputation too. Moses interceded with
God on behalf of the children of Israel in like matter when he pleaded with God
to forgive them of their sins that they had committed in the wilderness. In ancient times we saw that each nation had
their own god and when they defeated another nation they would taunt them about
how weak their god was and how strong their own gods were. Asaph knew that there was only one God and
all the rest of the gods were idols.
This is what Moses had said to God that the nations would say of the
children of Israel that there God was not strong enough to bring them into the
land He promised them.
Asaph wanted vengeance for the blood
that the Babylonians had shed, for blood was precious to the Jews for they saw
the blood of the animals shed in order to have their sins covered and now they
were seeing the blood of the Jews shed by the Babylonians and this greatly
concerned and angered Asaph. He may have
though that God did not love them anymore because of the blood that was being
shed. As believers today we know that
because of the blood that Jesus Christ shed for us shows that God loves
us. “But God demonstrates His own love
toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
The
Worshiper: Promising to Praise God (vv.
12-13) “12 And return to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom The
reproach with which they have reproached You, O Lord. 13 So we Your people and the sheep
of Your pasture Will give thanks to You forever; To all generations we will
tell of Your praise.”
In verse 12 Asaph asks the Lord
to return to those who had devastated the nation of Israel seven times,
something we see in other OT passages (Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, 28; Deut. 28:7).
God had told His prophets that He was going to use the Babylonians to
bring about His wrath upon Judah, but they seemed to enjoy doing this more than
they should have and so a bit later God will use the Medes and the Persians to
destroy them and it will take place in one day.
(See Dan. 5)
God wanted the children of Israel to
reach out and witness to the nations around them about the greatness of their
God and tell them about their God so that they too could know Him. Israel failed to do this, but Asaph wants God
to allow them to still do this and if He allows them to do this then they will
praise the Lord and tell all generations about the Lord. We do know from the OT prophets that wrote
after the exile of Jews to Babylonian that some of them did speak to their
captors about the Lord. Ezra, Nehemiah,
and Daniel did this.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I see in
these three sections of Psalm 79 God’s justice, God’s holiness, God’s mercy,
God’s love, and God keeping His promises that He had made. These are all attributes of God and by seeing
them in action I know that they are true, and I also want to worship God
because of His attributes, for He is worthy of my worship.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
I desire to trust the Lord and to give Him glory for the great salvation
that He had provided me with. I pray
that the Lord will continue to teach me contentment.
4/29/2012
7:35:41 AM
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